The Tenementals 
Glasgow: A History vol. I of VI
(Strength In Numbers Records UK)
★★★★★

ANY band that can seamlessly weave Jimmy Reid’s legendary UCS speech into the pounding anthem Universal Alienation: We’re Not Rats deserves undivided attention.

The Glaswegian octet The Tenementals’ socialism is not just worn on their sleeves but seeded deep into their personas — it laces every line they sing with commitment and raw passion.

They are almost too good to be true — these nine songs explore the radical side of the city’s past from those who died fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War, to militant Suffragettes, to the Radical War of 1820 movingly probed in Peter Pike Or Pink: “Are you our history? / Are you our future?” 

“We tell a radical history of a radical city in a radical way,” says frontman David Archibald. 

A spot-on rebel clarion call that educates and edifies in equal measure. 

Nik Bartsch’s Ronin 
Spin 
(Ronin Rhythm Records/Ritual Groove Music 15)
★★★★★

IF THE pulse of Module 66 (or any of the others for that matter) gets under your skin, the choice of Ronin for the quartet’s name becomes an evident perfect fit.  

For like the historic Ronins, these musicians have no master and their “wandering” takes you to places of sublime sonic beauty time and time again.

Breathtaking arrangements and unusually tight and transient phrasing mesmerise.

Ronin’s playing is stunningly symbiotic and compact. A life force that requires and gets an undivided attention.

Nik Bartsch on piano, Sha on bass clarinet and alto saxophone, Kaspar Rast on drums and bassist Jeremias Keller leave each other alluring spaces and freedom to weave fascinating, rapturous riffs and patterns.

Rast’s masterful syncopation enthralls in Modul 14 which retains here its original 2x7/4 beat, bass line, and unique one-note repeating theme.

A revelation.

Kuunatic
Wheels of Omon
(Glitterbeat)
★★★★★

JAPANESE all-female trio Kuunatic are a phenomenon. Their flair for arrangements that symbiotically blend a range of ancient Japanese musical forms with contemporary rock vocabulary is fascinating. 

The sombre Yew’s Path or the hypnotic Yellow Serpent, the a capella Myth of Kluna and Kuuminyou, will immerse you in their complex yet eerily familiar tonal progressions where the clarity of the vision is augmented by instrument and vocal mastery. Intriguing and captivating.

“Each of us listens to completely different types of music,” they say. “We create fantasy stories,” they explain further, “influenced by what has happened on Earth.”

Wheels of Omon is the invented mythical story of the ancient world of Kuurandia, its moon Kluna and its sun Omon inspired by Kuunatic’s stay in Switzerland, the Alps and the Rhone Valley, where they reimagined grand Earth and times of a billion years ago. Compelling. 

Touring the UK in April